The Choice

A free verse poem about my thoughts during a difficult time in my illness.

There comes a time when you reach that point.
That point at the outer edge of your consciousness.
Where the fog is less dense and for a moment everything seems clearer.
And in that moment you notice the things that you were too clouded to see before.
Things that make you wake up and realise that drastic action is needed.
Things like the inability to experience happiness, or even contentment,
Or how every smile you give has to be forced,
How when you're sitting with your family or friends, the only thing you can think about is running away,
How you haven't been able to go anywhere alone since you were sixteen,
Or when you're staring in the mirror and you don't recognise the person looking back at you,
It's the moment when you realise that the careful routine you put in place so that you can feel safe, is the thing that is holding you back,
When you realise that you've gotten tangled up in your safety net and now it's cutting off your air supply.

And so you've got to make a decision.

You can stay with the safe option.
Stick to what is familiar, what you've done a thousand times before.
And even though each break down is worse than the last, and every time you have to build yourself back up again there's another piece missing, you can convince yourself that patience will pay off.
That one day things will just magically fix themselves, that one day you won't feel like a broken doll that slipped past quality control, sitting in storage waiting to be fixed or thrown away.
Feeling like an incomplete human sitting in limbo waiting for the chance to have a go at living.
Hoping that one day you can start your life.

Or, you can choose to go down the road that's not even a road but an overgrown jungle that you'll have to fight your way through.
The jungle filled with the unknown and uncertainty.
Where there is no safety net, and your limits are tested.
There is no path to follow and it will be rocky, you will stumble and you will even fall down but there is the possibility that you may reach the peak.
The summit of the proverbial mountain where everything is clear and all your problems are below you, where you've overcome all the obstacles and risen above the hurt and pain, where you can shake off the shackles that have held you back for so long, where you are free to finally spread your newly acquired wings and fly.

That's the decision.
Safe and monotonous or dangerous and new.

It's said that "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got".
And if that is true then what have you got to lose?

If you end up back at square one - that's okay.
You've been there so many times before there's a bench named after you.
You'll do what you always do, pick up the pieces, put them back together and try again.

But maybe, just maybe you won't.

And in the end isn't that tiny sliver of hope worth trying for?

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

You could come out the other side shining.
Your battle scars just a reminder that you fought, you were strong and most importantly, you survived.